


First Kiss

by Llybian



Series: Summer Nights [3]
Category: Slayers (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Weak knees, girl talk, she's not jealous okay?, slumber party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11783979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llybian/pseuds/Llybian
Summary: A conversation about first kisses leads Filia to an unpleasant discovery and a rather intimate confrontation with Xellos.





	First Kiss

It was shaping up to be another interesting journey for Lina Inverse and her band of friends, acquaintances, and sometimes-enemies. With Zelgadis tagging along to search for his cure, Amelia following to punish villains, Gourry following because he was epoxied to Lina at the hip, Filia joining in for a chance to find a lost tome about ancient dragons, and Xellos stalking them for his own unspecified purposes… well… there had already been a lot going on. And then they’d picked up Sylphiel along the way just to make things more complicated.

As it was, they were way over their shrine-maiden quota. Not only that, they were over their budget. Stretching a food budget to eight people (some of which had very large appetites) on misappropriated bandit booty was tough. Lina said that Xellos should help them out by not eating since, being a creature of darkness, he didn’t need to eat human food. Xellos responded by saying that he liked eating human food, so there. Then _someone_ had called _someone_ selfish and the result of the ensuing fight was that Filia was left to try to yank her mace out of the trunk of a tree it had somehow gotten lodged in.

But they were making the food thing work, mostly by cutting down to six courses per meal. It was a sad state of affairs. Near starving, practically. But they were getting by. The real problem had been rooms. Rooms in most inns were very expensive. Xellos always got his own room, but then again, he _paid_ for it. So with him out of the equation they needed at least two for propriety’s sake. Gourry and Zelgadis didn’t have such a raw deal in sharing a room. But for the girls… well, four people in one small room is pushing it a little.

It had been Amelia who had suggested that they treat it like a slumber party. It was a nice way to completely turn around the situation. After all, they were girls and half of them would be sleeping on the floor. They might as well pretend it was a party instead of a giant inconvenience.

So they’d busted out the nail polish and the hair things and made ready to have the best darn shot at a sleepover that they could manage. Lina had even scrounged up a cheap local snack. It was called… "snapped corn" or something. Lina was currently hogging the bowl while Sylphiel painted her toenails and Amelia begged the others to let her braid their hair.

There are certain… male ideas of what a gaggle of girls such as this might discuss. The subject matter largely includes boys and bra sizes. This is a negative stereotype. Groups of young women are just as likely to talk about sharecropping, corporate finance, and art history as they are to talk about romance and comparative physical development.

Nevertheless, they _were_ talking about boys in this case. But this is just a coincidence and shouldn’t be taken for the norm.

“First kiss?” Filia repeated when the subject came up. “I haven’t had one,” she answered haughtily.

“What?” Amelia said in surprise.

“Why is that so hard to believe?” Filia sniffed.

“I don’t think it’s hard to believe at all,” Lina said through a mouthful of puffy corn kernels. Filia ignored her.

“It’s just that,” Amelia began uncertainly. “Well, haven’t you been alive for like… hundreds of years?”

“Yes. And?” Filia asked, starting to feel a little under attack.

“And in all that time you never—”

“The dragon race,” Filia cut her off, “is chaste and virtuous. I’m not about to kiss the first person I see!”

“I don’t think she’s saying that,” Sylphiel said in her calm, dreamy sort of way. “Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with kissing.” She looked off into the distance and accidentally painted Lina’s pinky-toe blue while she was distracted. “I remember my first kiss. I was eight and my friends and I were playing tag. Out of nowhere Murdo Vieben ran up and kissed me.”

“What happened then?” Amelia asked.

“He ran away again,” Sylphiel said simply.

After a pause, Filia asked: “Isn’t that sexual harassment?” because she just had to take all the magic out of moments.

Sylphiel just shrugged. “How about you, Miss Amelia?”

“Oh,” Amelia looked down. “Well I… that is… I never actually—”

“Waiting for a certain someone?” Lina asked archly.

Amelia blushed and didn’t answer.

“ _You_ were giving me trouble for not kissing someone when you haven’t kissed anyone either?” Filia exclaimed. It stank of hypocrisy.

“Well, you’re a lot older than me, Miss Filia,” Amelia said. “And you’re… well, I was just a little surprised is all. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“There’s no need to get defensive about it,” Lina said.

“I’m not being defensive—” Filia began to shout back.

“What about you, Miss Lina?” Sylphiel asked with what Filia thought was altogether too much eagerness.

“What about what?” Lina said warily. You could tell she knew exactly what, but wasn’t exactly keen on answering.

“You know. Your first kiss,” Sylphiel prompted.

Lina looked away with an embarrassed and irritated expression. This wasn’t surprising considering this wasn’t a subject she was at all at home with talking about. But Filia thought something in her expression went beyond miffed and uncomfortable and into the territory of teeth-grindingly pissed off.

“Oh fine,” she said, slamming down the metal snack bowl on the floor with a _giiiooong_ sound. “If you must know, it was Xellos.”

*****

Miles away, on the other side of town, the local craft union was having its semi-annual midnight house of cards contest. Prestige and a solid gold-painted trophy were on the line. These were serious men who prided themselves on their meticulousness, proficiency in their craft, and above all: steady hands. This was about more than building houses out of cards. This was about building destinies.

The sound came from out of nowhere. Its waves decimated the neighborhood of cards with such ease that it buried an apprentice up to his knees in paper. It sounded like…

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!”

*****

The room was in disarray. The windows had cracked and pictures had fallen off the wall. But no one was really paying attention to that. A towering dragon, shaking with rage is the focal point of any room.

“Calm down!” Lina said, waving her hands at her. “Geez, do you want to wake up the whole town?”

Filia’s nostrils flared as she took in hulking gulps of air. She had so many enraged questions she wanted to ask that she didn’t even know where to start, especially since most of them were just variations on her earlier "What?!" outburst with different numbers of a’s, exclamation points, and question marks. So she settled for a shrill, and still too loud, demand of: “When was this?!”

“A couple years ago when we were going after the Claire Bible,” Lina answered.

“Oh, that’s right. When he first traveled with us. I remember,” Amelia said lightly, as if this wasn’t some big, earth-shattering deal.

Filia wasn’t sure at this point whether the best way to cope with this would be to punch a hole in the wall or just weep for the awfulness of the world.

“Oh, Miss Lina!” Filia cried mournfully, on the edge of bursting into angry sobs. “How could you have let yourself be seduced by that—”

“Whoa! _Whoa!_ Hold up!” Lina said, sounding thoroughly insulted. “I didn’t let myself get seduced by _anyone_. You think I _like_ that that creep kissed me? Are you _kidding me?_ ” She ran her hand irritably through her hair. “Trust me: no one is more upset about this than I am.”

Looking at Filia’s expression… this was very hard to believe.

“But to let that… that _monster_ of all things—” Filia began in a horrified manner.

“We didn’t know he was a monster at the time,” Lina said. “That’s why he did it. When I was getting close to figuring him out, he did it distract me.”

“It was on the cheek if that makes you feel any better,” Amelia said in a comforting, I-sincerely-think-I’m-helping kind of way.

“It doesn’t!” Filia shot back, although it did dampen down the images circulating through her head without permission.

“Look,” Lina said, “can’t we just drop the subject?” She thought desperately for something to derail the current topic. “Hey Amelia, why don’t you braid my hair now?”

“Umm… sure,” Amelia said, still looking at Filia like she might explode any minute.

For her part, Filia was staring at the wall as though contemplating especially bloody murder. Then suddenly she slammed her fist down on the floor, stood up, and declared to the room at large: “He’s not going to get away with this!” before storming out of the room.

The door crashed shut, its hinges moaning and nearly parting company with the wall.

“Oh brother,” Lina said, letting her head fall into one of her hands.

“So… umm… is Mister Xellos Miss Filia’s boyfriend?” Sylphiel asked as she’d just joined up with the group and was a little behind on developments.

“Not… really,” Amelia answered.

“What does she think she’s doing?” Lina asked, throwing up her hands.

“I don’t think Miss Filia’s thinking at all,” Amelia said slowly.

“Well, if she doesn’t come back then I get her pillow,” Lina said sullenly. It wasn’t that she didn’t _care_ what happened to her friend. It was just that they’d only been able to get four pillows per room and she needed at least two to herself to be comfortable. She was being _practical_ , not selfish.

*****

_That evil, evil, EVIL piece of garbage!_ Filia thought wildly as she stomped through the halls of the inn, pumping her arms furiously. _Stupid Xellos and his stupid haircut and his stupid staff and his stupid cloak and his stupid yellow turtleneck and his stupid gloves and his stupid smile and his stupid finger-wagging and his stupid STUPID… purpleness!_

Filia was a bit too far gone to realize she was getting incoherent at this point. All she knew was that there would be retribution. If Xellos thought he could just casually whisk Miss Lina over to the dark side then he had another thing coming!

She reached his door and was barely able to keep herself in check enough to not knock with her mace. She didn’t want to have to pay the innkeeper for property damage, so she contented herself to a very sharp, very angry sounding, she thought: _Knock! Knock!_

After awhile, a voice from within said: “Who’s there?”

Filia grit her teeth. This wasn’t the start of a joke because she would _so like to kill him_. “It’s me, now get out here!”

The door opened to reveal Xellos. Or, in Filia’s mind, opened up to reveal _the stupid, evil bastard who called himself Xellos_. He looked her up and down curiously. “Rude,” was all he said.

“Oh, don’t even give me that!” Filia snapped. “I _know_ what happened. I know you kissed Miss Lina and you’re not going to get away with it!”

Xellos had the nerve to look upwards and to the side as though he was trying to remember something. “I did?”

“Don’t play innocent!” Filia yelled. “You _know_ that trick doesn’t work on me.”

“Oooh, I think I remember now,” Xellos said, memory returning as if by magic. “A few years ago. On the cheek.” He gave her a questioning look. “Does that even really count?”

Filia couldn't imagine how he could spin that as not counting. A kiss was a kiss was a kiss! She _really_ needed to hit something. Unfortunately, Xellos would definitely dodge. So she settled for stamping her foot. It was childish, but necessary.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Filia said accusingly.

Xellos raised an eyebrow. “What am I doing?”

“You’re—” Filia struggled to put her suspicions into words. She rallied on a surge of anger. “You just think you can go around with your Mister Nice Guy routine and then act all evil like you _really are_ all of the sudden and confuse everyone so that they think you’re… you’re… _interesting_ or something!”

Xellos was quiet for a moment. Then he said: “ _I_ think that, do I?”

“Well, it won’t work!” Filia declared, ignoring his question. “You won’t seduce Miss Lina to the Monster race’s side as long as I’m around!”

Xellos reached a gloved finger up to scratch at his hair, seemingly embarrassed to be in the presence of such misplaced exuberance. “If you ask me, it sounds like you’re jealous.”

Filia made a sound that wasn’t a known word in either human or dragon. “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Filia finally said dangerously, “to suggest I’d join the monster race’s side. I would sooner _die_.”

Xellos’s eyes were still squinted shut, but Filia had been around him long enough to be able to tell when he was rolling his eyes under their lids. “Not _that_. You’re jealous of the kiss.”

“I am _not!_ ” Filia shot back immediately. In some ways that suggestion was even _worse_.

Xellos’s eyes opened and his grin broadened. “If you wanted me to kiss you, Filia, you just had to ask.”

“I don’t! I’d rather—” but exactly what Filia would rather do was cut off as, to her horror, she realized he was moving closer toward her. “What are you—? Don’t you dare!” But she was already in his arms.

The sentence "she was already in his arms" should've encompassed a sultrier scene than this. He _was_ holding her, dipped slightly so that her long blonde hair flowed away from her. All in all, that pose could grace the theatre poster of any epic romantic play (preferably one involving plantations and war), but it was somewhat marred by Filia stretching her arms out as far as they could go and pushing his face away from hers.

“Filia, you’re really ruining the mood,” Xellos commented, sounding slightly muffled since her hand was pressed in an extremely unfriendly way against his cheek.

“Let me go!” Filia demanded, perhaps unaware that if he complied then she would fall crashing to the floor. “It didn’t work on Miss Lina and it’s not going to work on me so just… leave me alone!”

Xellos stared at her, looking for a moment slightly frustrated. “You’re really angry about me kissing Miss Lina, aren’t you?”

Well, _duh!_ “Of course I am!” Filia shouted. “How could I not be?”

“But don’t you think you’re a little… disproportionately angry?” he asked.

“What?”

“I mean, I’ve done much worse things and you haven’t been as mad,” he pointed out.

“Name one!” Filia retorted.

“I can name at least twenty off the top of my head,” Xellos said. “Really, kissing a human girl on the cheek barely counts as a misdemeanor.”

“You’re trying to charm one of the greatest sorceresses in the world into working for you! That’s _not_ just a misdemeanor!” Filia declared. _Not by a long shot!_

“Look,” Xellos said, frustration now definitely seeping into his voice, “I don’t know what sort of nonsense you have floating around in your overheated little dragon brain, but I’m going to say this as clear as I can: I have absolutely no designs on ‘charming’ Lina Inverse into the service of the monster race. It would be troublesome for me and most likely would not actually succeed. I kissed her because I didn’t want her to find out that I was a monster at the time. That was the best way to accomplish that because Miss Lina is easy to distract like that.”

“Though,” he added ominously, “not nearly as easy as you.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Filia asked, unable to break eye-contact.

“Not where we started, are we?” Xellos pointed out laughingly.

Filia whipped her head around. _That sneak!_ They’d started out right in front of his door, but now they were nearly at the opposite wall on the other side of the hallway. He must have been creeping them forward slightly while she was focusing on the conversation.

He pushed her against the wall, breaking down the distance between them that she’d tried so hard to maintain. Now he was much too near her. She’d complained about him invading her personal space in the past, but this was more than just an invasion. This was an… an… extended occupation or something! Her breath was only coming in short gasps because he was pressed in so close to her. If you wanted to find a space where there was an inch between them, it would be very hard to find a place to insert the measuring tape.

“Why would you do this?” she breathed.

His lips slightly grazed her forehead. “Because you’re practically begging me to.”

“No,” Filia managed to get out. Even in the current… admittedly dizzying situation, she found his penchant for twisting reality to suit his own purposes aggravating. “I’m telling you not to. That’s the _opposite_.”

“Your grand delusions speak for themselves,” Xellos said, lowering himself down to her eye level. “You’ll spin any lie to yourself to avoid your jealousy,” he said, lips moving in closer to hers.

“You have no _right_ ,” Filia hissed.

And for some reason, that stopped him in his tracks. Filia certainly hadn’t expected it to, but it did. “What?” he said.

“A kiss is supposed to be an expression of affection and… love,” Filia said, unsure why she was suddenly whispering. “And you’re not capable of something like that. You have no _right_ ,” she said again.

He hesitated for a minute, brows furrowing until they met in the middle, then brushed his lips almost gently against hers. She shivered visibly and… audibly. He seemed to take that as a cue to continue and… kissed her.

She was kissing Xellos. The monster. The bad guy. The one that had killed thousands of her people. The even-if-you-take-all-that-away-he’s-still-unpleasant guy. And she was _kissing him_.

No. No, no, no, no, _no_. _He_ was kissing _her_. That’s an important distinction to draw! She hadn’t wanted this! This hadn’t been on her agenda when she’s stormed down to his room in a rage… late at night… in her nightgown…

Well, it _hadn’t_ been a jealous rage, no matter what he said.

…It just might have looked that way. Coincidentally.

As for the kiss itself, how it felt and what it meant to her… that was a matter between Filia and her diary. All that’s clear was that, after the seconds had stretched to infinity, Xellos broke away, pulled back from her and said: “Well… now you don’t have to be jealous anymore.”

And then Filia slid down the wall and crumpled gracelessly to the floor.

*****

_Stupid Xellos_ , Filia thought not for the first time that night as she trudged down the hallway and back to her room. She’d fallen down because she hadn’t gotten her balance when he pinned her against the wall and when he suddenly pulled back and she’d had to stand on her own, she hadn’t been able to keep her footing. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation and should’ve been damn well good enough for Xellos.

It didn’t have anything to do with her… _swooning_ over him or anything so ridiculous.

But try telling Xellos that. Try telling him _anything_.

And now he seemed to have gotten this… crazy idea into his head about her. It was madness, it was anarchy, worst yet: it was _blasphemy_. Things were so bad that they’d gone on the far side of bad and all the way back around and out into…

She paused to slap a little sense into her face. _Don’t you dare start taking this seriously_ , she warned. _You know he’s just messing around with you because he can. Don’t be the suggestion-prone, overemotional creature he thinks you are_.

_And that means absolutely to dwelling on it,_ she decided. _No replaying the events in your mind over and over again. No blushing and looking away when he looks at you. No dreaming. No imagining. And_ definitely _no touching your lips and looking dramatically into the distance. If these rules are followed, then there’s nothing to worry about._

She took a deep breath. _I can do this!_ She opened the door to the room she was sharing with the others content that all could be well in the world again.

Amelia had long since braided both Lina and Sylphiel’s hair. Sylphiel had curled up in her blanket and fallen asleep and Amelia and Lina had just been discussing whether to indulge in another sleepover favorite (such as Interrogation or Peer Pressure, the freezing of an unwary companion’s underwear, or raising the dead) or just give up and get some sleep. They looked up when she appeared in the doorway.

Filia tried to look nonchalant and utterly failed. She coughed and kept her expression neutral as she made her way toward her makeshift sleeping bag on the floor and picked up her pillow which had somehow ended up on Lina’s bed. _Please just let me get to sleep without anyone saying anything_.

“So,” Lina said slowly. “Your first kiss would be… with Xellos?”

“Oh, shut up!” Filia said, hurling her recently relocated pillow at Lina.


End file.
